I checked on Charlotte for about the hundredth time since we left the cabin. She lay still in the backseat floorboard, a black bag over her head.
I didn’t have to cover her face. It wasn’t like she’d be retracing her steps or telling the authorities anything. No, I had a different reason for this extra bit of sadism. For once in my long, blood-spattered career, I felt something akin to guilt. I don’t think I was capable of feeling the real emotion. But it was close. It tore at me every time I looked at her, my shirt tenting around her and Liam’s shorts cinched ridiculously around her far-too-small waist. I’d even left her wrists unbound. All the fight seemed to have gone from her.
“Fuck!” Liam banged his hand on the steering wheel as we turned into the airfield.
“You feeling it, too?”
He nodded. “Too late now, brother. Too fucking late.”
She wasn’t crying. She was calm. It was almost unnerving. Would I be so calm when it was my turn to take a bullet between the eyes?
Liam drove up to a hangar at the back of the airport. A black limo was already parked out front. He pulled in beside it. The sun was blazing overhead, making shimmers dance along the blacktop. The building was open, but inside was murky compared to the dazzling sunlight.
“Stay frosty.”
“Same to you.” Liam put his hand on the door handle. He hesitated. “Shit. I don’t think I can… We could do other jobs.”
“We could.”
“We could just take her and fucking go.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face and rubbed my jaw. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking the same thing for the past hour.
A tap at the glass next to my head. I whipped out my pistol, ready to pull the trigger. Then I saw the shock of bright blonde hair. Felicia with her semi-auto at the ready. Looks like she’d been called in as personal security detail for Reynolds. Fuck. Shit just got real.
“Pull into the hangar,” she said.
“Just follow my lead,” Liam drove until the car was in the shadows and killed the engine.
“Fuck you. Follow mine.” I got out.
“Boys. Been too long.” Felicia sidled up to me and ran her hand along my crotch like she owned it.
I caught her wrist. “Business first, Felicia. You know that.”
She smirked, her too-red lips almost garish. How did I ever think she was hot?
“All work, no play makes you a dull boy, Jax. Get the bitch. Let’s get this over with.”
I pulled Charlotte from the car before palming my pistol. Liam kept his holstered. For now.
I led her to where Reynolds stood smoking a cigar. He was in his sixties, balding, but otherwise fit. Another man – thin and pale – stood behind him. He must have been the one I’d spoken to over the phone. I owed him a neck-breaking for trying my patience.
The client puffed out a plume of smoke. “Well done, my friends. Well done.”
“Do you have the money?” Liam asked.
The limp-dicked motherfucker hefted a black bag from the floor and walked it over, barely managing to get it all the way to me.
“This better be double.”
He looked up at me, fear written all over him, before backing away. “It is.”
I released Charlotte’s elbow and took a small step back. Not too far. I kept an eye on Liam in my peripheral vision. Felicia stood at the hangar door, watching the scene inside as well as keeping a lookout for intruders.
Reynolds ignored us, his transaction finished, his prize attained. He stared at Charlotte, surveying her body like a piece of art. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve fantasized about fucking your sweet little cunt? I used to have your father over for drinks and he’d bring you when you were still a little girl. I wanted you then. But he never left me alone with you. He was always watching.”
Smart guy.
“You’re too old for my tastes now. And your father’s run off with a great deal of money and drugs that belong to me. So, it seems I was the one who should have been watching him more closely.” He moved closer to her and ran his hands along her tits before squeezing them.
I wanted to flay him, bleed him, to split him in fucking half. But I waited. I needed to find the right moment. Preferably one when Felicia wasn’t looking my way.
Charlotte didn’t move at his assault. Didn’t make a sound. He pulled a pistol from his inner coat pocket. It was obvious he didn’t know how to handle a gun. He was clumsy, his fingers grasping when they should have been caressing. That would play in our favor. I glanced at Felicia. She’d turned her back to the outside, enjoying the show and the coming finale taking place in the hangar.